


Go Grandpa

by ThunderDragonfruit



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-19 11:29:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22743814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThunderDragonfruit/pseuds/ThunderDragonfruit
Summary: The Elderbug wonders where on earth that little traveler guy went off to.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 59
Kudos: 151





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This might not be very good, but if I didn't just suck it up and post it I was never going to.
> 
> Anyways this is the first thing I've ever written that wasn't like. an essay for school or something so go easy on me but also don't because I want to improve.
> 
> Basically just let me know whether or not you like this and please tell me if I made any major mess-ups with grammar or lore or anything.

The Elderbug was promptly awoken from his nap by the loudest scream he had ever heard in his life.

Now, it wasn’t like Elderbug had heard too many screams in his life. After all, how could he? He was always spending his time in Dirtmouth, where nothing ever happened.

Nonetheless, it was loud. The kind of sound that shook the ground and scrambled your brain, the kind that left your body and mind shaking.

Needless to say, he was worried. Who wouldn’t be, after all? What great beast could have made such a horrid noise? Was it hurt? Was it some sort of battle cry?

After only a few minutes of worry, The Elderbug decided it would be best to ignore it as he did everything else that came from that horrible well. He quickly drifted back to sleep, the dastardly noise already nearly forgotten.

* * *

Just like everyone else, The Elderbug could only ignore certain things for so long. The scream had long since been pushed to the back of his mind like every other unfortunate or strange thing that had ever happened, but there was one thing he couldn’t seem to forget about.

The little traveler.

They had come into town a while ago. The first to talk to The Elderbug in what seemed like ages. They had sat on the bench for a while, and then, despite The Elderbug’s warnings, climbed down into that dreaded well. The Elderbug did not expect to see them again after that. Every other person who had gone down there had lost themselves to the sickly air, never to return. But the little traveler came back up to the fading town, and through The Stag Station of all places! The Elderbug had thought that place to be long since locked up and closed forever. From then on he knew not to doubt the little traveler. They were different from the others.

Not too long after, the couple who had moved in not too long ago opened their map shop. Then the shopkeeper returned. Then the young lady who he’d long since thought dead. Dirtmouth wasn’t quite as bustling as it once was, of course, as no force he imagine could restore it to its former glory, but the town gradually became a little less lonely. The little traveler never said that they had anything to do, of course, as they never said anything, but The Elderbug knew, somehow, that it was them who did all of this. How they did it he would never know, but he was thankful.

Then, they gave him a gift. A wonderful, beautiful gift. A flower. A bright flower, with delicate petals that jostled slightly in the wind. He clutched it tightly to himself at all times. It was the only gift he’d received in years upon years! The only gift he’d received from a traveler he’d given advice to. The flower was very precious to him. And so was the little traveler.

Now, though, they had disappeared without a trace.

The traveler always came back up. Always. No matter what, every few days, The Elderbug would see two horns and two black, empty eyes peek up from the well, or he would hear the unmistakeable thundering of the stag arriving at its station. Even after there was nothing left for them in the town. Even after they had bought out everything from every store. Even after those horrid tents had come and gone. Even after The Elderbug really, truly had nothing left to say to them, no advice left to give, even as the little traveler’s pale, blank face looked up at him, expecting him to start up yet another one-sided conversation. They still always came back.

Not this time, though.

Days upon days had passed, and yet there was still no sign of them.

Perhaps… he should go look for them?

No, no, that would be foolish. He must truly be going crazy, to have a thought like that.

But as he looked back down at the flower, he reconsidered.

Had the traveler not done a thousand times more for him?

So, he stepped, slowly, towards that horrid old well that had taken so much from him, and he thought to himself, that yes, he truly has gone mad this time.

But going mad had never stopped anyone from going down that well, had it?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright i SWEAR that the next chapter won’t take as long as this one. i got sick for awhile and as a result my brain was completely fried the whole time. anyways enjoy.

The Elderbug’s descent down the well was about as tough to pull off as he’d thought it would be. There were no stairs, or even stones jutting out of the sides of the well. Only a lone chain was there to allow access, and while he was capable of lowering himself down, it wasn’t easy. He was old, and as a result his body protested every straining movement. However, he knew that this would likely only lead to some soreness the next morning, and so continued on nonetheless.

He was very thankful to be able to sit down when he did finally reach the ground. The Elderbug did not want to think of the trip back up, so he decided he would simply worry about that problem when he got to it.

Once he had gotten his breath back, he set out to hopefully find his small friend. The terrain was particularly hard to navigate, having many small obstacles, but there appeared to be no other real challenges. He moved through the first couple of rooms without much trouble, and his worries that he might run into monsters or evil things of any sort quickly faded. Despite the fact that these tunnels were vast and seemed to suck in every person who’d ever entered them, and despite walking through them with no idea where he was actually going or how deep in his friend would be, if they were even here at all, The Elderbug felt almost peaceful here, as if the evil that once resided in these caverns had been vanquished.

Just as he began to run out of things to think to himself about, an odd looking building came into view.

It was a giant thing. Intimidating to him, but he wasn’t going to find the little traveler if he simply skipped past anything he found intimidating. So, trembling only a little bit from fear of what could be inside, he walked in.

There was nothing within, save for another entrance. A huge oval, like the shape of an egg, that led into a long, dark hallway, with strange symbols appearing as The Elderbug plodded through. 

After a good amount of walking, the darkness finally gave way to reveal a bench and a large stone of sorts. However, The Elderbug’s attention was more focused on the large room not too far from said bench. While it wasn’t too brightly lit, it was contrasted from the darkness enough to catch one’s eye. 

As he stepped into the room, The Elderbug quickly realized that his search had ended.

But not at all in the way he wanted it to.

After a brief moment of shock, he could only bring himself to exclaim two specific words.

“Oh dear.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's kinda short (all of them are), but hey, it's progress!

There, in the dead center of that horrible, horrible room, lay his friend’s torn and tattered cloak, and their stained but shining nail, and worst of all, their mask, cracked right in half. 

There are some people, (a lot of people, actually), who seem like they can never die. People who seem too dang strong to ever go down, in any way. Like if something big and heavy fell right on top of them, it would just split right in half, leaving them unscathed.   
  
The Knight was one of these people. They came into people’s life unapologetically and burned their image in their minds so strongly and clearly that no force could tear it down.

Which was why, even though he gazed directly at solid, distinct proof that his friend was unmistakeably, doubtlessly, irrefutably dead, The Elderbug still nearly didn’t believe it. His mind reeled, trying to rationalize what could possibly have taken down the only person to ever survive the things in this well for longer than a few days.   
  
So, overcome with complete and utter indecision, The Elderbug simply stood there for a good, long time. Standing there was, after all, what he did all day. It was second nature to him to simply slip away and watch as minutes and hours passed. So he did.

A large chunk of time passed before his session of zoning out was interrupted by footsteps. Not huge, intimidating stomps like he may have feared, but the light, short taps of someone with good enough balance to be set apart from any shambling corpses taken over by infection. As the footsteps stopped, The Elderbug slowly turned around to look towards the entrance.   
  
There, right at the doorway, stood a bug The Elderbug had certainly never met before. She wore a sort of dress or cloak or even shawl and had a mask (or perhaps face) with two long, curved horns. Her weapon, which was sharp at one end with a sort of loop at the other, was drawn, and her stance clearly indicated that she was more than ready to brawl with this supposed intruder. This, of course, alarmed The Elderbug, causing him to quickly back away and lift his hands up slightly to hopefully indicate that he was no threat.   
  
“Who are you?” she yelled, her voice echoing throughout the large, empty room.   
  
At this point, The Elderbug began to panic. He hadn’t been this scared in quite a while, which was impressive considering how he was scared of nearly any sort of change in his surroundings. He stammered, and eventually yelled out a simple, “I mean no harm!” before promptly crouching down into a shivering bunched heap, protecting his face with his hands and hoping that maybe this very, very poor defense would somehow stop that weapon from slicing through his entire body as if it were a stuffed doll.   
  
The odd bug lowered her weapon and looked at him in mild confusion for a couple of seconds before plodding over to where he sat. She tapped his shoulder, to which he replied with a violent flinch before slowly lowering his hands.

“I can, uh, now see that you aren’t here to cause any trouble,” She said, much quieter this time. “It is clear that you are no adventurer, so what brings you here?”   
  
The Elderbug didn’t say anything, but instead looked over at the broken mask that lay a few feet away.   
  
“Oh.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you couldn't tell, I'm not the best at writing dialogue. Forgive me.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hopefully this chapter’s a bit longer than the last one. enjoy.

The Knight was at rest. What was rest, really? They didn’t know. They didn’t really think they’d ever know, come to think of it.   
  
The Void was at rest. It wasn’t up and moving, it was not thrashing around and trying to hurt them, it simply sat still and did nothing. But it didn’t do nothing, did it? It rested.   
  
Their Siblings were at rest. At one point they would rise and float above the many, many broken shells. Not any more, though. Just as The Knight no longer walked in Hallownest among the ruins.   
  
It had been a good run, and they had completed what they wanted to. There was no more regret, now, so they wouldn’t go back. Their sibling was freed, the infection lifted. No more regret. Not now.   
  
There wasn’t much to do in the Abyss. So they thought. They shouldn’t be able to think, not really, but they could, so they did.   
  
Were they dead, they wondered? They were at rest, but was it death? They recalled Cloth, and how she told them that she was sure they would see each other again. Would The Knight ever go to that same place where Cloth went? They hoped so. That would be nice, seeing their friend again. Maybe they could even see Quirrel there, too. And Tiso, and Myla. They missed them. A lot.   
  
They missed their other friends too. The ones above them. Hornet, Elderbug, Cornifer, Sly, Iselda. All of them were still up above them, hopefully alive and well. But there was no more seeing them. There were no more regrets, and so no more Living. They couldn’t come back. Unless there was regret.

There was, though. Just one.   
  
They never got to say goodbye.

* * *

“So how did you know them, then?” Hornet said as the two walked among the ruins back towards the well.   
  
The Elderbug had to think for a second before replying, “They passed by town on their way here. Walked right past me at first, but eventually, they came back up through the old stag station. I’d never seen it open until then.” It had been a while ago. Then again, when was the last time he had known what day it was? It might have only been a few hours that they were in Hallownest, and he very literally wouldn’t have known the difference. Time worked strangely in Hallownest. “Afterwards, they stopped by the bench and listened while I talked to them. Never said anything back, though.”

“That sounds like Ghost, alright.”

“Ghost?”   
  
“Just a nickname I gave them. They never seemed to object to it”   
  
“It’s fitting.”   
  
The two walked in silence for a while after that. Hornet was rather annoyed by the old bug’s slow walking, but tolerated it. He was a rather old guy, after all, and she wasn’t about to yell at the first nice person she met in awhile besides Ghost for being a little slow. Well, a little was an understatement. He walked as if he hadn’t moved in years, and was still trying to get used to it. Come to think of it, how did he even climb down the well? Sheer determination, probably. He didn’t seem like the stubborn type, but she had been wrong about people before.

By the time they finally, FINALLY got to the fountain, Hornet was just about ready to just pick up the old man by his cape and drag him the rest of the way to the well just to save time.

Now that they were there, though, The Elderbug simply stared at the chain leading up the well, as if unaware of how he would get back up.

“You aren’t going to be able to climb back up there, are you.”

He shook his head.

Hornet sighed, grabbed the old man’s hand, and began trudging over to the nearest stag station so that they could simply ride back up.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy crap dialogue. hope i’m doing okay so far.


	5. Chapter 5

By the time the two arrived at Dirtmouth, The Elderbug had walked quite a ways more than he had in a long, long time. He was tired. Hornet left soon after, saying that she had something to do or something along those lines. It was likely just an excuse to leave, but it didn’t matter too much to him.   
  
He’d have liked it very much if he could just continue standing in the center of town like he usually did, waiting for another traveler to give advice to, but that wasn’t plausible now. He knew now that the traveller was gone, and the weight of that was something he couldn’t pretend didn’t exist like he did everything else. So he sat down on the old iron bench like he had suggested so many others do before, and set the broken pieces of his friend next to him. He’d figure out what to do with those a little bit later, but for now, The Elderbug simply slumped over a little, and, for what seemed like the first time in years, began to silently cry.

* * *

Sly really didn’t know too much about the other people living in Dirtmouth. He realized that this was pretty surprising, considering that only three other people lived there. Then again, no one really went outside to go and see each other, which made sense because everyone there except the old guy next to the bench had a shop to keep. Though the only customer any of them ever seemed to have was the little traveler that walked through town occasionally. He wondered where they had gone. They had bought everything he had to sell, but usually still wandered into the store occasionally anyways. They were very peculiar, having been the only person in years to be deemed a fellow nailmaster.   
  
Come to think of it, why was he still sitting in this shop? He was out of things to sell. It wasn’t like he had too many places to go, seeing as he wasn’t going to be going into that well anytime soon, but it would be good to get outside now and then. Sly stood there for a while longer before finally convincing himself to go outside, if only to do something other than stand at the counter counting geo.   
  
As he stepped outside, though, he saw a rather peculiar sight. The Elderbug was no longer standing next to the bench, but was instead sitting on it, with his face in his hands. He was… crying?   
  
Now, Sly was already very bad at comforting people  _ before  _ being isolated in his shop for an indefinite amount of time. He was probably horrible at it now. But it would be very unkind to not at the very least try to help, so he walked over.   
  
Sly reached up with the intent to maybe pat The Elderbug on the back or something, but in doing so happened to look over, and the sight of a pale, broken mask cause Sly to violently flinch. He quickly pulled his hand back down and backed up. The sudden movement caused The Elderbug to hear him and look up.

Sly didn’t want to believe that that was the traveler that he had known. Sure, he didn’t really know them that well, but they were one of the very few people he knew. They were a nailmaster, and they had bought things from him, and they had saved him from being lost forever in the well, and he was sure they would have done much, much more had the need arose. He waited for a moment before glancing at the broken shell once more. No, it was unmistakably them. Those horns and empty eyes couldn’t have belonged to anyone else. He looked at The Elderbug.   
  
The Elderbug must have known the question that Sly was about to ask, because he answered it, “I don’t know exactly what happened. But they stopped the infection. It’s gone now.”

Sly didn’t know what to say. He knew that they appeared to have some sort of important quest they were trying to complete, but he never would have guessed that it was something that big. He wished he could be joyful, knowing that the infection was vanquished, but it was hard to be, knowing the sacrifice it took.   
  
But despite the sadness he felt over the loss of who he supposed counted as his friend, Sly really wasn’t one to show it. He didn’t want to disappoint The Elderbug by simply breaking down, so he took a deep breath.   
  
“Well, the least we could do is fix them up a bit,” Sly said, walking back into his shop to find something to reconnect the pieces. It wouldn’t really do anything, but Sly was sure that if he was dead, he wouldn’t exactly want to be in pieces everywhere, would he?   
  
After he had found some glue, they had stuck the pieces back together and while the mask still had a visible crack, it was together again and The Elderbug seemed to feel a bit better.   
  
Sly left to go back into his house, but before doing so took one last look at the mask.   
  
Oddly enough, the crack didn’t seem to be visible any more.

The shell almost seemed to glow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope i did ok on this one. did a lot of stuff i haven't done before here, and i don't know if i wrote sly quite right.
> 
> school's been shut down due to coronavirus, so i'm locked inside for now, so you guys can reliably expect more chapters sooner because i'll have more than enough time and not much to do for a while.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was posted from my phone so if the paragraphs are messed up or something that’s why. tell me and i’ll fix it once i have my computer with me

The second that The Knight felt the pieces connect, they launched themselves out from under the sea of void. They were prepared for this.  
  
They made their way through the broken shells, up the platforms, leaping off of walls. They scrabbled up out of the Ancient Basin and into the City of Tears. They had once fought their way down, deeper into these caverns, but this time they clawed their way back up to the surface, not once looking back.  
  
They went right through spikes and traps; anything just to live once more. To be with their friends. Ironically, in their desperation to get back to the top of the caverns, they practically flew right past the Stag Stations, which would have allowed them to get up to Dirtmouth much quicker. That fact never crossed their mind, though, so they kept climbing. Winding through the many caverns.  
  
This feat would have been significantly harder had the infection not been gone, but it was, so as a result they reached the Forgotten Crossroads in a fairly short amount of time.  
  
They took hold of the chain, and began to hoist themself up the well once more.

* * *

The Elderbug felt significantly better now that the pieces of his friend were back together. The shell didn’t look quite as… sad, now. He had folded their cloak and set it next to their shell on the bench, along with their other belongings. He’d find out what to do with all of it once he was less tired; he was still exhausted from the long walk he’d had, and the climb down the well. So he settled down to take a nap.

The nap didn’t last too long. It was only a few minutes before The Elderbug’s sleep was interrupted by the sound of chains jangling, indicating that someone was climbing up the well. He sighed and then waited a moment before turning his head to the well.

In the darkness, the most he could make out was two big, round, glowing eyes, that looked right into him.

Of course, to The Elderbug, who was terrified of most things, especially new things, was terrified of this as well.

He quickly backed up and then ran (by The Elderbug’s standards. To the average person it would seem more like a terrified speed walk) in the other direction, only stopping when he was ducked behind a house.  
  
After what seemed like hours but was, in reality, a couple minutes at most, he heard steps approaching. Familiar steps. But that wasn’t possible, of course. The person that those steps belonged to was dead. The Elderbug simply kept his eyes covered and sat there, as if that would stop anything at all from happening.  
  


* * *

  
  


The Knight, back in their own shell and their own clothes, stood there watching their friend cower in fear at them. It was almost a little bit amusing, but more worrying than anything else. They considered how they could notify him that there was no danger without startling him. It wasn’t like they could just say hi, and if they attempted to make any kind of other noise that would certainly scare him more.  
  
Eventually they settled on simply tapping him on the shoulder. He flinched, of course, thinking that whatever it was he feared so much was grabbing him, or something like that. But when he realized that there were no terrible claws tearing him apart or anything like that, he slowly looked up.  
  
Understandably, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

They moved closer to The Elderbug and attempted to give him a hug. They couldn’t really fit their short arms all the way around him, but they were sure it was close enough. After a moment of shock, he softly laughed and returned the embrace.

It felt good to be back.  
  
  


  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's the end! this work is very likely going to get a sequel, just not for a little bit because i want to take a break to work on my other thingy.


End file.
